Looking Forward
by Spice of Life
Summary: Harry is starting to notice what the war is doing to everyone.


Okay, I am a very emotional person who cries over just about everything. And so, thinking about what is going to happen in the 7th book just about tears my heart out. :)

I was reading fics today that were about the characters talking to each other about how scared they were and knowing they could die at any time—and it just greatly depressed me, hehe. So, I decided to write a fic about Harry noticing all the changes in people and trying to face what he knows is coming.

Plus I have off school until Wednesday, so I might as well write. Enjoy, and please give me feedback!

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It was unnerving to know that at any second, minute, hour, or day that their life could be over. It was terrifying, the feeling of emptiness that everyone seemed to have acquired recently.

Hermione didn't chastise them anymore about homework. Harry wished she would even though they hadn't had homework in a year. He wished she'd at least pretend to help them when they couldn't properly say what they were thinking. He wished she'd correct their spelling and incorrect use of punctuation and all that even though there was really no point of it—not that there ever had been. He wished she'd obsess over the N.E.W.T.S that they had supposed to have been taking that year or how they would be so very, very far behind in their learning.

Ron didn't talk. Ron didn't joke. Ron didn't eat. Ron was even more lost, because he had so much more to lose. He searched the obituary every day, and Harry still remembered how, a few weeks ago, he had found the name _Weasley, Percy _listed. He wished Ron would open his mouth to say something funny—say anything at all. He wished Ron would start a row with Hermione. He wished Ron would tell Hermione what he really thought of her, which Harry knew was more then he'd ever admit.

Harry figured he was the only one, surprisingly, who was the least affected by all of this. He had already become empty so long ago that it felt normal to be this numb constantly. Sometimes he and Hermione began very loud random conversations just to hear their own voices, since Ron certainly wasn't using his.

But he kept reading the obituaries, starting anytime he saw a last name beginning with the letter _W_. The death toll became greater every day. First it had been _Macmillan, Ernie_ and then shortly after it had been _Finnigan, Seamus _and _Thomas, Dean_ because they had spent the summer together. _Abbott, Hannah_ and _Jordan, Lee _followed shortly after.

Harry had heard from Neville over the summer. But Neville didn't do much of anything anymore after his gran had died. Harry wasn't so sure Neville even really existed anymore.

It was hard watching everyone who had once been so optimistic and full of life slowly wilt and become hollow. Fred and George only smiled when people were looking, but if you would catch them off-guard their faces would be disfigured by unfamiliar identical frowns. Ginny acted like no one else existed besides her family, Harry, and Hermione. It was sort of true. No one really did exist anymore.

Harry and Ron shared a room. Every morning Harry would wake up to find Ron crying into his hands. Ginny told him once that Ron said he had nightmares from the brains in the Department of Mysteries, but Ron wouldn't tell Harry what they were about.

The physical changes in everyone scared Harry almost as much as their emotional changes. Hermione's hair had gone from rather controllable to a bush of frizz that looked like it might eat him if he got too close—as Ron might've said. Or, as the _old_ Ron might have said. The new Ron just sat around, his long ginger hair hiding his pale freckled face. He had grown at least three more inches, his ankles still miserably showing under his far too-short jeans. But he had grown incredibly pale and was always exhausted—at meals he would be far too worried about putting food on his brother's or Ginny's plate that only when Hermione voiced her concerns about him growing far too thin would he eat a few bites of something and then later excuse himself from the table and head up to where Harry knew the bathroom was.

Ginny's hair didn't seem quite so bright anymore—but nor did any of the Weasley's. Harry had always thought her face looked so young—they had all been so young. But now, here they were, only a year older and yet so much wiser. It scared him to know that this was the path his life was going to take—they were never going to be young again, and the childhood they had left was permanently ruined.

Harry resented the fact that every inch of this house reminded him of Sirius—but he'd dealt with that. He hated the fact that every memory of Hogwarts reminded him of Dumbledore—but he was dealing with that.

But he hated knowing that what was about to come would change them all forever—and he wasn't sure if he'd ever be ready to deal with that.


End file.
